November 9, 2026To the Community:
Our school district is in an impossibly hard position facing declining enrollment, old buildings, rising health care costs for staff, rising special education and transportation costs, increased mental health needs of students, and lawmakers and a governor who refuse to take action to alleviate these problems.
To be clear, we should not be in this crisis. I fully blame our lawmakers for the incredibly unfair positions that our school board members are faced with. We should not be fighting with each other, but looking to hold policymakers accountable.
As a reminder:
Gov. Phil Scott vetoed S. 190, a bill that could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for districts
Rep. Candice White, of Waitsfield, and Waterbury Reps. Tom Stevens and Theresa Wood, along with Sens. Ann Cummings and Sen. Andrew Perchlik, all voted for Act 169, lowering the excess-spending threshold. (Rep. Dara Torre did not vote).
And Act 170, the act that requires districts to explore mergers and Cooperative Educational Service Areas, has yet to promise actual tax savings (and does not fund any school renovation or construction costs).
Gov. Phil Scott’s use of an artificial “buy down” of our taxes will only act to make this year seem worse.
Last week, after months of discussion, our school board members weighed these hard realities, and through a straw poll, voted to close both Fayston and Waitsfield elementary schools.
I have been attending school board meetings for years, often as only one of a handful of audience members. A longtime educator and a parent in the valley, I believe it is important for all of us to be paying attention to the impacts that Montpelier decisions have on our public schools and local communities. I have witnessed the care that board members have taken to address this crisis by asking questions, looking for alternatives, and demanding transparency.
When the poll did not go their way, the two Waitsfield Board members demanded the board revisit the straw poll. They asked that we make decisions that “rest on what is best for the whole district.”
I could not agree more with that sentiment: the nine board members who made the impossibly hard choice to close Waitsfield and Fayston did just that. They weighed the evidence, they used the best information available to them, and they cast their straw poll vote. I am sure there were countless objective pieces of information that they used to make this decision: town forest land, ECO classrooms, geographic location of schools, enrollment numbers, possibility of expansion, alignment with HUUSD vision and mission, maintenance needs of buildings, and so much more.
As indicated in both the Nov. 4 and Oct. 28 school board meetings, the scorecards presented by Superintendent Mike Leichliter and Finance Director Lisa Estler were never meant to be the only factor that board members used to make their final vote.
The argument that Waitsfield-Warren scored less than 3% higher than Moretown-Warren and so should be the choice is not valid. In fact, at the Nov. 2 Building Use and Visioning Committee meeting (2:32), Fayston board member Lang Davidson asked Ester, “...But it’s not like we’re going to decide what we vote on based on the tabulation of these charts. This is just to get us talking, right?” Estler answered, “Right.”
The nine Board members who made this difficult choice did so with immense care, intention, and respect for all our valley schools, and for all our children in the valley. To insinuate that board members only listened to the “loudest” community members is problematic in two ways.
First, the nine board members take their responsibility to best serve ALL the children in our district seriously, and to imply otherwise is both disrespectful and wrong. Second, to vilify community members for advocating for their local school is undemocratic. We each have a civic right to engage with our elected officials. Rather than discourage engagement, we should encourage it. The board encourages involvement in many ways: through public comment in person, through public comment on Zoom, via email, or via meetings with any board member. Everyone has had both an equal and equitable opportunity to engage with their board members.
I urge us all to come together and support our schools and community. We must not vilify each other for attending meetings, call out other schools, or put down board members. Instead, we must come together as a unified school district to support the best education for all of our students.
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver
Moretown
Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver is a Moretown resident and educator and was Vermont’s Teacher of the Year in 2025.